


is this what being vulnerable feels like?

by arekiras



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood-centric, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, italics are a stylistic choice leave me alone, mlm author, my poor gay son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 10:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12231348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arekiras/pseuds/arekiras
Summary: There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Magnus was right. There was nothing. Nothing at all.(an exploration of internalized homophobia)





	is this what being vulnerable feels like?

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I'm a trans gay guy and writing this was a therapeutic venture first and something for other people to see second. However, the lovely @softfallshadow (DragonBread) made it acceptable for the public eye. Thanks bud.

Alec wasn’t yet tall enough to see over the railing in the ops center. At six, his eyes were level with the bannister, and he had to duck down to see the Shadowhunters of the New York Institute at work. He clutched baby Isabelle’s hand tightly, not having faith in her small toddler legs to keep her steady among the fast-moving adults. Robert was a bit ahead of the two of them, conferring with Hodge over an open file and frowning. Alec knew that frown, he knew that it meant business, and not that Robert had time for either Alec or Isabelle. Even though he had been told  _ it’s your father’s turn, Alec  _ when he had asked Maryse to take Isabelle and him to the park. 

His sister got antsy after too many days cooped up in the residential quarters of the Institute, which is the only suitable part of the Institute for a three year old. 

He waited a few feet back, holding Izzy’s sticky little hand and watching the movement of his fellow Nephilim. None of them paid him any mind, but he was used to that. He was small, but no longer the baby since Isabelle arrived. He was growing, but not grown enough to begin real training. He lived in the shadow of either Robert or Maryse, waiting. 

Robert finished his business after a few moments, and by this time Isabelle was pulling harshly on Alec’s arm, whining at him with a thick lisp and few real words. He tugged her toward Robert, who looked down at them both. Alec got a nod, which he returned, and then Robert stooped down to Isabelle’s level and kissed her on the cheek, making her giggle. 

“Mom says you should take us out,” Alec reported solemnly, trying to hide his excitement. However much he pretended it wasn’t true, he was growing bored of the Institute as well. 

Robert straightened up, and nodded after a moment of tight-mouthed thought. Alec knew that look meant that he was displeased, but not enough to say anything. When Alec had asked his mother about that look, she had said only that work was stressful for them both. Which was the same thing she always said to him, before directing him back to his rune sketches. 

Isabelle let out a cheer when they headed for the entry hall, nearly shaking Alec’s arm out of his socket. He was with her, smiling openly now. Robert donned a jacket to hide most of his runes, and then opened the door for Alec and Isabelle to exit first. They crossed the lawn and stopped at the street, and Alec reached up to take Robert’s hand. 

Their fingers made contact briefly, but then Robert was pulling away, turning and scooping Isabelle into his arms instead. He messed Alec’s hair gruffly, and said, “You’re almost a man, Alec.” He then headed across the intersection with Isabelle clinging to him, leaving Alec to cross by himself. 

Alec crossed his arms behind his back, clasping his hands behind him and squaring his shoulders, following after them dutifully. 

His father was right, of course. Next year, Alec would begin his formal training. When he was ten, he’d get his first rune. He  _ was  _ nearly a man, and no longer needed to be coddled by his father. He never saw Robert holding Hodge’s hand, or embracing the other Shadowhunters. 

He watched Robert swinging Isabelle around and tickling the crease of her neck, how he laughed when she did. He looked past them both, to the other pedestrians. Two men passed him, sharing earbuds and their fingers linked between them. He averted his gaze quickly, and rushed to catch up with Robert and Isabelle. 

 

Alec hung his head, burrowing his fingers into his hair and pulling harshly, shaming himself for the hot tears that slipped down his face. Bile rose in his throat, and he bit it back. His room was dark, he turned out the lights while stumbling in and away from prying eyes. Today was supposed to be a good day. The best day of his life, even. Parabatai ceremonies aren’t an honor that every Shadowhunter gets. 

He tipped his head back, releasing his hair to let his head land on the door with a hard thump, ignoring the throb of pain to do it again. And again. His nails bit into the skin of his palms, palms that were slick with sweat. He swiped a fist across his face roughly, wiping his nose and eyes and glaring at the floor when more tears fell. 

Jace was his best friend. Jace had been his best friend since they were children. His brother in every way but by blood. There was nothing- there was  _ nothing _ . Nothing to fear, or regret, or be repulsed by, when it came to Jace. Their fears were shared, as were their hopes, and all of their secrets. All but one. 

Alec watched the tremors travel up his arms and into his hands, felt his bottom lip quiver so hard he had to trap it between his teeth. He couldn’t tie himself to Jace, not like this. Not when he was  _ like this.  _ How could he bind his soul to another man when he might not even be a proper man at all? What if he was only using Jace, using Jace as a way to relieve some of the feelings inside of him? Alec had trained every part of himself to ignore it. He trained his eyes not to look, and his mind not to think. He had almost trained his pulse out of racing. 

He knew enough to know that other men didn’t feel the things Alec did. He’d spent enough time listening to Jace’s secrets to figure that out for himself early on. He’d seen enough to know that men didn’t touch, and men didn’t hug, and men certainly didn’t do the things Alec had to train himself out of thinking about. Not any men that Alec was meant to be like. 

Jace was his brother, but Alec knew that Jace could never know. It would ruin them. Their brotherhood, their friendship, their bond, if Alec ever let him know. Whatever he felt about Jace himself would become irrelevant. The fact that Alec loved another man at all would be damning enough. He couldn’t love a man, love any man at all in any way. Everyone would think horrible things of him, of them.  _ Jace _ would think horrible things. It would turn their friendship, their brotherhood, into something terrible, something else to be ashamed of. Alec couldn’t bear the thought of it. Jace was his brother, so of course he loved him, but no one would understand that, or see the difference. They would all assume that because he was wrong he would love Jace the  _ wrong  _ way too. 

The knock on his door startled Alec to his feet, and Izzy’s muffled voice said, “Alec, you’re going to be late to your own ceremony.” 

Alec swallowed back his horror, and his loathing, and the lump in his throat. He couldn’t back out now, backing out would be worse than going through with it. Backing out meant that he was allowing his wrongness overcome him. He scrubbed his face quickly, and then changed into new clothes, and threw open the door without bothering to check his appearance. 

There was nothing wrong with him, he told himself. He ignored his heart jumping in his chest, and the press of fresh tears against the back of his eyes. 

 

“ _ Mom _ ,” Jace griped, arms outstretched in indignation. Alec rolled his eyes, no one could ever do pure righteous indignation like Jace Lightwood. He and Isabelle stood back a bit, watching the scene unfold. It’s always a scene, with Jace.

“I said no, Jonathan Christopher,” Maryse snapped, and the use of his full name made Alec wince, even though he wasn’t the object of her scorn. For once. 

“We spent weeks tracking those things, we found their entire nest. And now we’re not allowed to clear them out?” Jace gestured with one swinging arm, narrowly missing the edge of a pillar. 

“No, Jace. As I’ve said, the Clave didn’t approve the mission. The three of you are good in a fight, but you’re not experienced enough to go after an entire nest of Mantids by yourselves. You’re welcome to join the mission team, Jace, but you’re not leading it,” Maryse said sternly, and Jace looked ready to argue when Alec said his name. 

“Leave it,” Alec said, and Jace glared at him, but relented. 

“Learn from your brother, Jace,” Maryse said before walking off, leaving Jace to stew in his own self-pity. 

“I can’t fucking believe this, man,” Jace immediately started as soon as they head toward the residential quarters. “We wasted weeks of our lives on this stupid stakeout!” 

“All because  _ you  _ insisted, Jace,” Isabelle reminded him, but he ignored her. 

“This is so gay,” he said with finality. Isabelle elbowed him hard in the ribs, but Alec didn’t visibly react. Jace was like that, and he wasn’t the only one. If Alec blocked instead of attacked during training, he was gay. If there weren’t any more bananas in the kitchen after his morning workout, the kitchen was gay. If someone was  _ eating  _ a banana, well, that was gay too. 

“Come on, Izzy, there’s no one around to be offended,” Jace said, rubbing his side. Isabelle pointedly didn’t look at Alec, but he could practically feel her thinking about him. He wished she’d stop. If anything, her being loud about it just made it harder for him to hide. 

“Still,” Isabelle said weakly, and Alec rolled his eyes. Jace strode off, heading for the gym, and Isabelle caught Alec’s arm when she was sure they were alone. “Alec—” she began, but Alec held up a hand to stop her. 

“It’s fine, Iz, really. It happens all the time,” he said, and the words tasted like blood. 

 

Alec had never come into contact with warlock magic before. He told himself that’s why his heart was racing. And it was true, when Magnus Bane’s power travelled through him and into Isabelle through their joined hands, it felt like electricity roiling in his chest. It burned, but also invigorated. It was almost enough for him to ignore the feeling of Magnus’s hand in his. Alec thought of all the times a man’s hand has touched his: hand to hand combat, when he was a child crossing the street, helping them off of the ground after a fight or hunt, his own Parabatai ceremony. It never felt like this. 

It was terrible. 

Alec had  _ eyes _ , and those eyes were drawn to Magnus, no matter how many times he forced them away. Even though he spent the better part of twenty-three years learning to force them away. What was worse, Magnus was looking back. It felt like a mockery, in some way. He couldn’t flirt back, he couldn’t even acknowledge it. If he didn’t seem to notice, maybe no one else would. His secret could stay as close to his chest as always. 

He almost thought he could manage it, even with Magnus’s hand holding his and their eyes holding each other. But then Valak showed him Jace. 

It was no surprise that Alec should love Jace the most in the world; they were Parabatai, their souls were wound together. But Alec felt bile crawling up his throat and his body seized with horror. His grip on Isabelle and Magnus’s hands must have hurt, but he couldn’t hear anything other than the roar of blood in his ears, the truth before his eyes that he loved a man the most. Not his sister, but his brother. His brother who was closer than blood, and far too close. 

All of the fear he felt the day of the ceremony and every day since crashed on him all at once. The  _ wrongness  _ in his chest, which curled into his stomach and up his throat to choke him. 

“Alec,” he heard Izzy faintly, “It’s okay.” She always thought so. But she didn’t have to live as he had to live. Her existence wasn’t a transgression like his was. 

_ Don’t break the connection _ , Magnus had said. Alec wrenched his hands away and threw himself into the center of the circle. He thought about how much he wanted to tear himself apart, how much better it would be to not be whole on the outside just as he was not whole on the inside. And then the panic set in, and he didn’t think much at all. 

 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Alec,” Magnus said, and Alec didn’t look at him. He probably meant it, but Alec didn’t care. He didn’t want to feel the shame, he didn’t want to be something that caused himself and his family shame at all. 

He didn’t want other people to see. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said shortly. 

“You will,” Magnus said, and then gave him his space to pass through the doorway. Alec did, and hated that he wanted to look back at Magnus. To say something in response. There was nothing to say. There  _ was  _ something to be ashamed of, something to swallow and swallow back forever. He could ignore it, and he could pretend. He always had. 

_ There’s nothing to be ashamed of.  _ Magnus was right. There was nothing. Nothing at all. 

 

Alec really hated Clary Fairchild. He hated her voice, he hated her hair, he hated what she did to his life. He hated how Jace followed her like a lovesick puppy and let her ruin everything Alec worked so hard to build. He hated that she thought nothing of tearing his world apart. 

“Just admit you’re in love with Jace, you’ll feel better!” she snapped at him. It’s the sort of thing she’d say, just because she could. As if she knew anything about Alec at all. She didn’t, clearly, if she thought such a thing of him. 

Alec wasn’t in love with Jace. Alec could never be in love with anyone, broken as he was. He couldn’t ever burden another human with that. But Clary didn’t know anything about that. She didn’t know what it was like to feel like a burden, to feel like a monster. To  _ be  _ a monster. 

“You’re in love with Jace,” he snapped back, and his voice was sharp. That was good. There’s no point in her knowing how tired he is. How the exhaustion has bled into his bones, and he wanted to lay down and never get up. He felt like he was falling, and just wanted to finally hit the ground. 

 

Alec wanted to follow his heart. He wanted his heart to have a solid direction. On one knee in front of Lydia, his heart screamed. So did his brain. He wanted to run. But this was right, this had to be. This was what would protect his sister, this was what would save his family. 

This was what everyone did. They married, they had children, they raised the next generation of Shadowhunters.  _ Even Shadowhunters fall in love _ . It wasn’t true, Alec decided. When Shadowhunters fall in love, they stop being Shadowhunters. No one could be entirely loyal to the Clave, entirely dedicated to the work, if they were in love. If their heart belonged to something other than their mandate, they weren’t worth their Runes. 

Magnus was wrong. Other people could fall in love, never him. In order to be worth anything, he had to seal that part of himself away. Carve it out, even, leave it somewhere no one could ever find it. Not even Magnus. 

Whatever he had unlocked in Magnus, whatever Magnus could have unlocked in him, it had to be forgotten. It had to be nothing, just as the way Alec’s wandering eyes and racing pulse were nothing.

He had to forget Magnus Bane, and forget his heart, and forget love. He had to do these things, for his family. It was the only way. And he was a diplomat, he was responsible. He could do this, do what no one else could. Just as he always did. 

“Lydia Branwell, will you marry me, Alec Lightwood?” 

 

Alec had been to a fair share of weddings, mostly as a nicety than out of any real interest. He knew how the ceremony went. Lydia clutched his hand gently, but it felt like a death grip. The Silent Brother stood tall and imposing beside him, like an executioner. But Jace was behind him, and Isabelle smiled at him, and he took strength in it. 

The Silent Brother spoke the words, and Lydia held the newly activated stele in hand.  _ A Rune on the hand, a Rune on the heart.  _ Alec thought it was more like a brand, or a curse. 

Alec, personally, did not believe in angels. Or miracles. But the doors to the church opening felt like a gift, and Alec pulled his hand away to look up, thankful for the stall. He saw Magnus coming down the aisle, and his vision narrowed to him, to only him. Magnus looked back, and raised his chin like a challenge. 

Alec took it. 

Lydia was the last thing on his mind, but he said something to her. He saw her face fall, and knew it must have been the right thing to say. He stepped away from her, and tried to catch his breath. Tried to steady himself, plant his feet on the floor and keep his chest from bursting. When he began moving down the aisle, he had never felt more steady in his life. The rushing in his ears stopped, and panic in his stomach subsided. 

His mother approached, and tried to stop him. “Alec, what are you doing?” 

Alec thought of all the days of his life, of never feeling right. He never felt real. He had to try harder to exist than anyone else, to exist normally. He had to break himself down and rebuild something his family could be proud of. And no matter how hard he tried, he was always rejected. His mother favored Jace, his siblings didn’t listen to him, and his heart was a traitor. He had never been enough. He had never done enough. 

That was what he was doing, he realized. He was finally doing enough. 

_ Enough _ . 

He had never kissed anyone before. Never thought about it much, if he could help it. But he kissed Magnus, and never wanted to stop kissing Magnus. He never wanted to lose that feeling of freedom, never wanted to see the world again after such an earth shattering moment. He kissed Magnus, and everything exploded. Everything inside Alec burst and broke. He didn’t want to open his eyes and see that the room still looked the same, that he still looked the same. 

It was different. Finally, everything was real and out in the open. 

 

Everything in Alec screamed, his entire body thrummed with a single thought: Magnus. Magnus, who wasn’t in the Institute, and wasn’t answering his phone (he’d called twelve times), but also wasn’t among the pile of bodies of fallen Downworlders. The carnage of the Soul Sword. 

When a hand grasped his arm, Alec almost jumped out of his skin. He turned, instead, and his mind had barely connected to the sight before him before he grabbed Magnus and pulled him into a tight hug. 

In that moment, the fact that Alec could ever be afraid of this, of being in the arms of a man, felt like a distant dream. It wasn’t long ago, but it was so far away from him then. Hugging Magnus that morning chased away the fear of the night, and then all of the fear aside from that. He never wanted to lose this. He never wanted his fears to own him again. 

He never wanted to be in a world where he did not love Magnus Bane, where he could not hug him and worry about him. He liked the path he was on now, with Magnus and the truth filling him up. He wanted to live  _ this  _ life, and he wanted to share it only with Magnus. He wanted this to be his forever. 

A forever where he could always be happy when he looked at the person he chose to be with, because he  _ chose  _ that person. Magnus was not forced upon him. He wanted to wake up with Magnus forever, and live an entire lifetime where he never got tired of kissing him. Where he never had to stop kissing him. 

“Magnus, I love you,” he said, and it felt warm. He felt warm to his bones, and not tired at all, even though he spent the entire night in fear. 

“I love you too,” Magnus said, and that felt even warmer. 

Alec’s chest burned, and it was good. It felt like a blessing, like a gift. He pulled Magnus into another kiss, and resolved to never let go. 


End file.
